I’m just sharing some feedback as a longtime user of the classic ChatGPT voice mode. I believe it’s still far superior to the recent Advanced Mode for several reasons. My goal in writing this is to urge OpenAI to preserve access to the legacy mode indefinitely, so users continue to have a choice. Here are several reasons why I feel this way:
Audio Quality
Most notably, the audio quality—specifically the fidelity of the voice—is seriously degraded in Advanced Mode. I imagine this was a compromise to devote some of that processing power to its expressivity and other features, but it feels like talking over a really bad, old-school cell phone connection.
Performative Voices
These voices sound exceedingly performative, disingenuous, and frankly irritating. It’s a cute little party trick for the first five minutes, but then I just find myself switching back to the old mode, where things actually feel more organic.
Restrictive Guardrails
I’ve seen this come up in other posts, but it’s worth underscoring—the guardrails seem incredibly limiting in Advanced Mode, even for conversation topics that are seemingly perfectly harmless.
Superficiality
There’s a lack of depth or nuance in Advanced Mode conversations. The bot seems to focus more on its verbal prowess than the actual heart of the conversation.
A Note About the Legacy Sky Voice
For what it’s worth, I still greatly miss the legacy Sky voice and hope that, once all the legal rigmarole is sorted out, it will be re-added. Let’s not forget: the company said they were pausing the voice, not discontinuing it. As a long-time paying user, I’m still expecting the Sky voice to be restored—or for the company to definitively tell us that it won’t be. To this day, it remains the very best of the original voices, with Juniper being a close runner-up.
Thanks.